Donald Trump ramped up his war with the news media on Wednesday morning, suggesting that it might be appropriate to challenge the license of NBC News in response to what he claimed was its “fake news”.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!

There is no single license that the federal government grants to NBC or any other national broadcast network. The FCC does register individual stations and affiliates, of which NBC has more than 200, but there would be no mechanism for separating NBC news – the object of Trump’s ire – from the network’s non-news programming, the vast majority of its broadcast content.

Also, even if the network were broadcasting “fake news” as Trump puts it, the FCC can only revoke a broadcast license for content that either violates the law, or falls short of certain technical standards.

The threat – a naked challenge to the first amendment protection of freedom of the press – comes less than a week after Trump also pondered why Congress had not begun to investigate the “Fake News Networks”, rather than his administration’s many alleged ties to Russian actors.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!